


Waiting for Dark

by Callaeidae3



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Assassin AU, Assassin Keith (Voltron), Assassination Attempt(s), Emotional Hurt, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Missions Gone Wrong, Vampire AU, Vampire Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: Keith fails an assassination mission, caught out by the leader of the coalition - the guy he was sent to kill. It turns out they know each other...





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1, edited

Killing the leader of the Coalition shouldn’t be such an easy mission, but it is. There’s no guards in sight, no one on lookout keeping watch over the small desert town which is the Coalition Force’s home base. What security they have is in a couple of men posted down below at each of the main entrances to the town, but other than that there’s no one up and awake just in case something happens while the leader man’s asleep.

 _Odd, t_ he assassin thinks as he cuts across rooftops and weaves through a couple of alleyways completely unhindered. He considers the possibility of this being a trap, but the night is calm and unsuspecting so he continues on.

The assassin climbs in through the window of his destination with the lightest of landings. He pauses, listening, letting his eyes adjust. At the side of the room, the shape in the bed – the guy he’s been sent to take down – doesn’t move. The assassin listens for a change in breathing pattern and there are none. He moves.

For months now, there’s been a rising suspicion within the Blade of Marmora about the rebel Coalition leader being a vampire. That wouldn’t be such an issue if the Empire itself was not composed of an ever expanding army full of vampires. The Empire apparently suspects the Coalition leader, and rumour has it that the reason why he’s been able to pull together so many people to fight for him is because they fear him.

That’s why Blade of Marmora sent an assassin to the Coalition leader’s house tonight. They can’t afford to sit back and let the Coalition – a minority of people yet unturned by the Empire – be led by someone who could bend them to his will by turning them himself. That would make the Coalition no different from the Empire.

The assassin slips his knife out of its sheath and takes the final three steps to the bedside. The leader sleeps stiffly, with almost the same kind of stillness that overtakes a vampire sleeping by day. For a moment the assassin almost hesitates – it _is_ odd that a vampire like himself would elect to sleep during the night, let alone be able to.

But then again, if the rebels in the Coalition weren’t even aware about the true nature of their leader, then it’s probably a necessary thing to do in order to fool the rest of the Coalition that he’s human.

Raising his knife, the assassin shrugs away the thought. At least the rumours were true.

…‘ _were’._

An elbow to his gut. The assassin doubles over, eyes wide in alarm. The Coalition leader seizes his wrists, pulls him over himself and flips the assassin onto his back between himself and the wall. The knife is wrenched from his fingers.

Though he struggles, the assassin’s pinned down by the leader’s body weight. No matter how much he tries to lash out with his fists, the leader’s grip on his wrists remains firm.

“Matt!” the leader shouts. “We have trouble.”

Sounds of shoes on stone floor grow closer, announcing the shadow before it slips into the room. They cross the room and peer over the leader’s shoulder, a bat in their hands and a face that’s somewhat familiar. That’s all the assassin sees of the guy named Matt before a torch is switched on and shined straight into his eyes.

With a growl, the assassin struggles again. The light stays trained on his face. He can’t avoid the hand that reaches out to yank the bandana down off his face. Matt and the leader go rigid.

“Keith?” the leader whispers, astonished.

Matt inhales sharply. “Oh… _Shiro,_ he’s a vampire. He’s a vampire!”

… _wait, the Coalition leader is Shiro?!_

The leader’s vice grip goes slack and the assassin yanks his hands free. It’s too dark to find his knife and too bright with the torch still blinding him, but he’s got the opportunity and he ceases it. He kicks the wall and propels himself across the bed –

Matt’s hands slam down on his shoulders. Shiro recovers then, sits on Keith’s legs before he can start kicking again and takes the torch in his hand. Matt forces him half upright, yanks his arms back and then hooks his own arm around them, locking his elbows there.

They act quickly. Shiro digs something out of his vest pocket and forces a metal bar between Keith’s teeth. Keith shakes his head, fights to dislodge Shiro’s grip on his face, but the bar is already stuck behind his fangs. Matt grabs a fistful of his hair with his free arm, lifting his head up so that Shiro can pull the straps together behind his head. The bar is deftly fastened in place and Shiro lets his face go.

He’s then rolled over onto his stomach and held there as Matt runs out of the room. Shiro doesn’t let him go, the vice grip on his wrists returned with the job of keeping him still. The leader’s a little more unsure, though, a little more hesitant, and Keith almost manages to wrestle his wrists out of Shiro’s hands. Shiro snaps back to focus before he can though, and pulls Keith’s arms further up behind his back.

He bites down on the bar in his mouth, frustrated and upper lip twitching. _What a failed assassination this turned out to be._

Matt comes back with rope. He picks up the torch turns it off in favour of switching on a battery-powered lamp on the bedside table. “What the heck, Keith?”

He wastes no time binding Keith’s wrists together and when he does, he does so with extra care to make sure it’s tight. Shiro holds him in place the whole time, not shifting in the slightest when Matt crawls up onto the bed behind him to tie his ankles in the same manner.

Shiro’s too paralysed in shock to let him up even after Matt’s finished.

It occurs to Keith then, belatedly, that Shiro’s hands are warm on his forearms. Warm….as in, _not vampire_ warm.

The leader of the Coalition isn’t a vampire. Shiro’s not a vampire.

Horror churns in Keith’s stomach. This is all a big mistake. Kolivan sent someone here to gather intel last week and they came back reporting that, yes, the Coalition leader is a vampire. That’s why Kolivan sent Keith on this mission – this assassination mission.

_How on earth did we get that bit of information wrong?_

“So,” Matt says lowly, “is it just you or are there more of your friends from the Empire hanging around?”

Keith twists and turns his head to glare at him. “Ahm nogh wrrph phe mhphmairhh!” _I’m not with the Empire!_

Matt raises an eyebrow and Shiro shifts uncomfortably.

“Maybe we should – ”

“Shiro, no,” Matt says firmly. “I understand your sentiment, but no. It’s too risky.” At some silent protest from Shiro, he grimaces. “He’s a _vampire_. We’re not taking that risk.”

“…he’s my brother, too.”

The silence is uncomfortable. Keith’s breath hitches at the word ‘brother’, knocks the wind out of him. No. He ran away. There’s no way Shiro can still think of him as family, not after all he’s done….not after all he is.

Matt’s gaze shifts to Keith, to the dark clothes he’s clad in and the bandana around his neck. They lock eyes and Keith grits his teeth on the bar. Matt’s far too cautious to let him go so easily.

Shiro readjusts his hold, tapping his finger on Keith’s forearm. After a few minutes of stunned silence, Shiro swallows and asks, “When were you turned?”

The question is barely a whisper but Keith hears every word as loud as the brightness of the sun. He can’t answer with the bar between his teeth. Even if it wasn’t, that’s one question he wouldn’t answer.

“He can answer us later,” Matt says, getting up. “Come on. We can talk about this downstairs. Let’s get him secured.”

Shiro apparently doesn’t have the heart to do it. His movements are stiff and Matt ends up having to do most of the hard work. He drags Keith across the room by the armpits, over to the other side of the room. Out of instinct, Keith twists and tries to pull out of Matt’s grip but his efforts are to no avail. Matt’s stronger than when he last saw him, more unwavering. Less forgiving.

Keith’s dumped beside a massive pot plant that sits beneath a window like the one he crept in. He’s hauled up by the collar of his hood so that he’s sitting against it. Matt braces an arm across his chest to keep him in place while he throws a loop of another length of rope over the pot plant. Keith knows he’s doesn’t have any chance of escaping now, so just sits there uncomfortably while Matt ties him to the pot.

The rope is pulled tight across his middle, pinning his hands between his back and the pot. It hurts, but he’s a vampire – a _risk_ – and Matt’s not taking any chances. Keith would have done the same thing in his place.

 _Guess Kolivan won’t be getting a mission debrief anytime soon,_ Keith thinks grimly.

Shiro’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. Keith knows the shock isn’t from nearly getting murdered.

Matt knows that, too. With a deep frown on his face, Matt turns off the lamp and pats Shiro on the shoulder. They share mumbled words as Matt switches the torch back on and then he’s ushering Shiro out of the bedroom with him, leaving Keith alone with his thoughts.

 _‘When were you turned?’_ Shiro has asked him. All this time, Shiro’s probably been thinking he either ran away from home, was killed somehow or was captured by the Empire.

Keith’s pretty sure that Shiro’s already figured out the answer to that question now though.

_Two years ago. That same night I didn’t come home from my cave exploring expedition._

He tries not to think about it. He can’t afford to let those memories surface now. Keith won’t be able to function if he gets lost in the memory of the night he was turned, and he’s got a mission to complete. The moment he’s free, knife or not, he needs to see to it that he completes his task. _Mission before the individual_ , is what Kolivan’s always drilling into him.

But the mission was to kill the _vampire_ leader of the Coalition. That was the whole point of needing to take him down – the Coalition won’t survive long under a vampire’s forced leadership. And yet it turns out that the leader isn’t even a vampire, and is Shiro, and if there’s anyone who would lead the Coalition without any means of forcing his people to follow, it would be him.

They pulled a dangerous move tonight. Keith’s almost glad he was caught before he could complete his mission, even if that does mean he’s going to be sitting here bound and essentially gagged until Matt and Shiro figure out what to do with him. He’d really like to be back at base before sunrise but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

Keith's knife gleams on the pillow, taunting him. _You failed,_ it says. Keith glowers at it.

With an experimental tug, he tries to get his hands out from behind his back but they’re trapped there. His knuckles dig into his spine, the concrete pot squishing his fingers against his back. The metal bar in his mouth is beginning to hurt his jaw. His ankles are bound too tight to slip free of the rope binding them.

He’s stuck like this, then. Actually stuck like this. Some great assassin he turned out to be.

Shiro sits numbly at the table. The cup of water in front of him hasn’t been touched. Matt’s drumming his fingers on the table top, chin resting in the palm of his other hand, eyes narrowed in thought. A bird sings in the distance.

“Do you think he knew it was you?” Matt murmurs, a hint of anger in his tone.

They’ve been sitting in silence for two hours. Matt’s been up to check on the vampire-assassin every half hour and never comments on his way back down. _Keith’s still there then,_ Shiro thinks. He almost wishes Keith would manage to free himself and just go. Shiro can’t deal with all the chaos going on inside his head.

“He can’t have,” Shiro chokes out. “He wouldn’t….Keith wouldn’t try to kill me on purpose, not on anyone’s orders.”

“He’s not who he used to be.”

“Being a vampire doesn’t change who he is.”

Matt snorts, raises an eyebrow.

“You said it yourself,” Shiro argues, “Pidge was terrified when she was turned. People freak out when they’re scared.”

“She nearly killed Dad.”

“The fall from the balcony she accidently pushed him over nearly killed him.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Keith’s still Keith. I just know…”

They fall into silence again. Darkness is finally lifting, the sun rising, but Shiro only feels exhausted. The night might be over but they still have a younger-brother-turned-assassin tied up in Shiro’s room. There’s been no one else coming for Shiro, so that’s a relief, but the fact that it’s Keith who came for him has left him more shaken than the assassin attempt itself.

Surely Keith wouldn’t surrender himself to the Empire. Maybe he was forced to join after he turned? Maybe he’s working with a group of assassins outside of the Empire? But if he’s not working for the Empire and he’s not with the Coalition then…who _is_ he working for?

His thoughts are cut short by a strangled scream.

Shiro freezes. _Another assassin?_ Matt’s hand comes down on the handle of the baseball bat at his side. Heart pounding, Shiro slowly rises to his feet and starts moving to the staircase, adrenaline pumping. A flash of golden light catches the corner of his eye and his heart drops.

“Oh, _no, no no…_ ”

It’s sunrise. Keith’s a vampire. 

Shiro almost flies up the stairs. How the hell could they have been so stupid as to not _think?_

Sunlight streams in through the window, soft and gentle, but Keith’s _writhing_ , choking on terror and pain. His body jerks against the rope that’s tied around his torso as he strains and strains to get out of the sunlight.

Keith’s burning.

Shiro lunges for his pillow, grabs the knife – the one Keith almost killed him with – off it and hastily starts sawing through the rope. It’s quicker than untying the knots. He ignores Matt. The rope falls. Shiro wraps Keith up his arms, moves into a crouch and throws them both out of the sunlight.

Matt takes a step back, swearing. “What are you _doing,_ Shi – oh, man…”

With one look at Keith, his face burnt and tear-streaked and his chest heaving, Shiro turns Keith’s head to the side and fumbles with the knot tying the metal bar in place. Keith can’t get enough air in panicking like this and with that thing in his mouth.

Matt kneels down on Keith’s other side and reaches out a hand to stop him. “Shiro, wait…”

“He won’t bite.”

“Are you freakin’ kidding me? He tried to kill you!”

Shiro grimaces. “Keith, if I take this out, will you bite me?” His hands are shaking, heart hammering inside his chest where Keith’s now doesn’t.

Matt rubs a hand over his forehead. “You’re asking an assassin for his word…”

“I’m asking Keith for his word,” Shiro says, not looking up. He raises an eyebrow. “Will you bite me?”

It takes a few seconds before he’s able to answer. Keith swallows and coughs, saliva spilling out of his mouth involuntarily. “I’mh nrph hrghha vai’ yuh,” he grits out. _I’m not gonna bite you._

Matt’s bristling at the saliva tracking down Keith’s chin. Keith’s obviously trying to put his energy into making the words clear and expressing them as the truth that they most likely are. After watching Keith’s expression carefully, Shiro finishes untying the gag.

But Keith only bites down harder. His eyes screw shut and he whimpers.

Shiro taps his fingers on the hinge of Keith’s jaw. “C’mon, buddy. I need you to let go.”

When he finally unclenches his jaw enough, Shiro slips the bar out and the assassin groans.

Shiro massages the side of his face, being careful to avoid touching the burn cutting over his cheek. Matt stares at him incredulously. When he gets Shiro’s attention, he hisses, wide-eyed, and jerks his chin at the distance between Keith’s fangs and Shiro’s hand. Shiro frowns at him and quietly shakes his head. Keith watches this exchange with one eye half-open.

The sun is rising still, obviously, and with it the sunlight creeps further and further into the room. Shiro picks Keith up with an arm around his back and under his knees and takes him to the other side of the room, then pauses. For the hour he’d be safe sitting in the corner of the room at the head of the bed, but the sun will still reach there. It would only be for an hour before it would be safe again, but…

“Matt,” Shiro says, feeling the strain of keeping Keith in his arms but trying not to let it show. “Can we get a space downstairs set up?”

Matt scowls, sends a not subtle at all glance at the bindings around Keith’s wrists and ankles, then retreats downstairs. Shiro exhales slowly, readjusts his hold on Keith and then sidles out the door after him.

“How’s the face?” he murmurs as they start down the stairs.

Keith blinks up at him, tired. “How do you think?”

“Just asking. Are you burnt anywhere else?”

“Hnnn… just my shoulder.”

“Alright. Do you mind if we give you some stuff for it? I don’t know if aloe vera works for burns on vampires the same way it does for human sun burns, but…”

“Anything would….”

Shiro spares a glance at his face. “Hm?”

“…anything would be good.”

They get to the bottom of the stairs and Shiro manoeuvres them around the table. There’s a shaded spot over by the storage cupboard that gets no sun all day long where Matt’s laying down a self-inflating camping mattress. A couple of blankets are laid out on the stone floor beside it. Shiro lowers Keith down there while they wait for the mattress to inflate. Keith almost drops.

“Whoa, whoa, hey….”

Shiro puts his hand beneath Keith’s head before it hits the ground. His stomach churns. Maybe not even a minute of sunlight exposure and Keith’s slipping into unconsciousness. Shiro shakes him on the opposite shoulder to the burn on his face.

“Hey, what’s…?” Then it clicks. “Are you falling asleep?”

Keith only groans and tries to curl in on himself.

“Uhhh, right. Guessing that’s a vampire thing, huh?”

“Hmmm.”

“In case you fall asleep before I can ask, is it okay if we treat your burns now? If you can stay awake a little longer, that’d be great but…”

Keith’s arm jerks as though to gesture. “Jus’ do it.”

Then Matt walks around to stand with his feet right by Keith’s face and it takes all of Shiro’s patience not to get frustrated.

Matt nudges Keith in the chest with his shoe. “Hey. Questions first. Sleep later.”

“We can talk later,” Shiro says firmly.

“Uh, how is that fair? He broke in, tried to murder you in your sleep and then kept us awake thinking about if for the rest of the night. We don’t have the time or energy for this.”

“Matt…”

Keith’s eyebrows twitch. “Thought th’ Coalition leader was a vamp’re,” he mutters. “Didn’t _know_ it was Shiro. Could’ve told you that...”

“So why didn’t you?” Matt asks.

Keith grunts. “Maybe ‘cause I couldn’t?”

“Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that, isn’t there? You come in here with the full intention of killing Shiro. How am I not supposed to be worry about you turning him?”

“Told you already… ’m not with the Empire.”

“He did, Matt,” Shiro says softly. “I heard him say it – try to say it.”

Tensions die down then and there, giving way to the same confusion of earlier. Keith’s out before the next minute has passed.

Matt looks down at Keith sleeping with a slight curl of his lip but is otherwise expressionless. “Pretty trusting,” he mutters, “for an assassin.”

 _An assassin. A vampire._ Matt keeps calling him these things but all Shiro can see is his younger brother. The one who disappeared without a trace two years ago, who Shiro’s only heard rumours about since.

Matt slides down the cupboard door and sits down with a heavy sigh. He hangs his head between his knees and runs his fingers through his hair.

 _Why did you run, Keith?_ Shiro tentatively rubs Keith’s back. _What were you so afraid of?_


	2. Chapter 2

With the anticipation of Keith not waking until dusk, Matt takes Shiro’s suggestion of going for a walk to clear his head. Shiro fetches what he need to deal to Keith’s sunburn.

_So much for a day of rest,_ he thinks as he gather supplies from one of the cupboards in the kitchen.

Wariness from the night’s events has him feeling lightheaded. Inwardly, Shiro groans. He’s not looking forward to tomorrow and he doesn’t want to think about it – a full schedule of meetings to discuss defence strategies, resource management and general reports, and then there’s also the matter of what he and Matt are going to do with Keith while their out.

Today they can watch over him, but tomorrow…

Either they’ll have to let him go tonight or they’ll have to hide him. If someone happens to stop by to drop something off at the house, and if they happen to stumble across Keith while they’re here, there’s no telling what they’ll do to Keith.

Drag him to the meeting hall, maybe? Kill him on sight? Leave him as his but run and alert the whole town, or at least Admiral Sanda who’s in charge of the Coalition’s first defence forces?

Shiro’s stomach churns at the thought of leaving Keith alone and defenceless like this. Of course, he and Matt could simply let him free before they leave for the meetings and hope that, when the daylight-induced sleep comes, Keith’s able to pull himself awake enough to defend himself. If he weren’t still on edge about the attempt on his life a few hours ago, Shiro would’ve untied Keith the moment Matt left, but…

He hates himself for leaving him like that, but an assassination attempt is not something to be taken lightly – even if it is his own brother who’s the assassin. If by chance Keith does wake up before nightfall, he could pretend he’s still asleep in order to catch Shiro unawares. Although his knife’s not on him at present, Keith would still have his hands free for strangling Shiro.

With a stressed sigh, Shiro carries the aloe vera gel and gauze and roll of bandages (in case the burns are worse than he thought) over to Keith. It’s hard to reconcile that kind of person with Keith, but that’s who he is now. That’s who he’s trained to be, for good or for bad they’ll find out later.

Shiro thinks about that as he shifts Keith onto his good side. He looks the part of an assassin, hair braided, jaw sharp, figure lithe… and yet he still looks like the kid who walked down the streets of the town market, laughing, at Shiro who got dive-bombed by a bird. Keith, who’s never been related to Shiro by blood but was willing to fight for him as if he were.

“I really wish you hadn’t run,” Shiro murmurs.

The aloe vera is cool, Keith’s skin even cooler. Not quite cold, but in no way warm either. The burn on his face is bad but not terrible. It cuts across his cheek in a streak of angry red. They’re lucky it was just a shaft of sunlight, Shiro thinks, then remembers with a dip of his stomach the way Keith had screamed and reconsiders the word ‘just’.

_Right, Keith’s a vampire now._

When it comes to looking at the burn on his shoulder, it almost feels like an invasion of privacy. Maybe it’s that, even though he’s still Keith, he’s a different person now. Maybe it’s that he’s out cold, or that he’s still bound up. Either way it just feels wrong, but if it comes down to the question of whether Keith wakes up with his shoulder feeling like it’s on fire or not, then Shiro will swallow his pride and higher standards for it.

Thankfully the uniform isn’t too complicated and Shiro’s able to pull down the sleeve and rub the aloe vera in before he gets too uncomfortable. The burn isn’t as bad as the one of Keith’s face, which is good, so it only takes ten seconds and the he’s pulling the clothing back into place.

Shiro grabs the cup of water off the table and downs it. That’s an issue he and Matt are going to have to talk about: how long are they going to keep Keith here before they release him, and what are they going to do if Keith gets hungry?

He wouldn’t be surprised if Keith takes off the moment they let him go. If that happens, Shiro’s just going to have to accept it. Keith will need to go back to his mysterious group of assassins and report back to them. Whether or not he’ll be required to complete his mission before he returns is another question.

But who is Keith even working for, if anyone? There’s no way he could’ve been hiding out among the Coalition, not since the Coalition’s primary goal is to stop the expansion of the Empire – in other words, kill every vampire they come across before more people can be turned and fall under the Empire’s control.

Considering the fact that Keith came here to kill as opposed to turn does at least support his claiming not to be with the Empire. The thought comes with a breath of relief, but it raises more questions than it answers.

Is Keith’s group also trying to stop the Empire’s expansion? But then why aren’t Keith’s group allied with the Coalition then, if they are for the same cause?

_Because they’re all vampires,_ Shiro’s mind supplies, _or at least some of them._ In which case they’re trying to escape the control that the Empire has over them as people who have been turned, but can’t ally with the Coalition since they’d be killed simply for being the vampires – the risks – that they are.

“Do you think he knows where Pidge is?”

Shiro startles. Matt’s home.

“I don’t know,” he says. “We can ask him when he’s up.” With a raised eyebrow, he adds, “No gagging him this time.”

Matt grunts, bending down to take off his shoes. “Yeah, about that… I’m sorry. I…”

“It’s okay. You were right with us taking precaution and I know you’re dealing with a lot right now, so…”

“I just… it’s been two weeks and I still don’t know what to think.” Matt walks over to the table and sits down in a chair with a defeated sigh. “If she came to the door right now, I’d simultaneously feel the need to fight her and welcome her inside. I-I don’t…”

Shiro puts down the cup. Now that Matt's calmed down, his anger exhausted, Shiro can see again how distraught he is. Shiro hadn't understood the depth of that confusion and the pain it brings until last night. He does now though, what with Keith having shown up out of the blue, and now Shiro can't possibly blame Matt for his reaction.

Maybe he'd have reacted the same had he not been so shocked to see Keith again. 

“I know," he murmurs, laying a hand on Matt’s shoulder. "I know. We’ll figure this out, somehow. And if it’s possible, maybe we can find out where Pidge is at and bring her home. We just have to be patient…a-and open minded.”

Matt nods, gaze flicking over to Keith and lingering on his still form. “So, uh…what are we going to do with him, though?”

“Wait till he wakes up, have a talk and see where’s best to go from there.”

“I’m meaning tomorrow.”

Shiro grimaces. “Oh yeah.”

Tomorrow’s the leadership meeting. Matt’s taking the opportunity to go see his Dad in the hospital, so he’ll be around the house longer, but Shiro’s got a full day of meetings to get through. They can’t just leave Keith tied up, alone, while they’re out. That’s not right, and if someone comes to the house to see Shiro about something and find Keith, who knows what they’ll do to him.

Shiro’s head is spinning too much to think. They’re just going to have to wait to see what becomes of tonight’s conversation. Until then there’s little he and Matt can do but wait.

And, of course, maybe try to catch up on some sleep – this time uninterrupted by an attempted assassination.

* * *

_Night_

Waking up has always been ten times harder since he became a vampire. It’s like his brain is too confused to know what to do: on one hand he’s alive and on the other hand he’s not. Sometimes it can take up to an hour for his body to remember that just because his heart’s not beating doesn’t mean he can’t move.

Except tonight. Keith’s past the brain fog and the sluggish waking up within half an hour, and yet he finds he still can’t move. His hands are stuck behind his back, and his feet…

_Oh, right. The failed assignation mission._

Keith forces his eyes open. There’s a light on and he startles at the brightness. The burns on his face and shoulder faintly burning in warning, but as soon as he realises that light isn’t from the sun, he lets out a breath of relief.

But light means that, though it’s night again, Shiro and Matt are still up, and that subsequently means being forced to have a two-on-one talk he really isn’t in the mood to have. Still, he’d rather talk than have that metal bar between his teeth again, so it might not be all that bad.

Depending on what they ask him, of course. There’s some things he’s not ready to even think about.

A shadow falls across the concrete. Keith tenses up. It unsettles him the way he relaxes slightly when it turns out the shadow belongs to Shiro. He thought he’d been able to let go of Shiro, but it turns out he was wrong. It’s because of that, after all, that he’s tied up instead of back at base with the Coalition leader’s blood on his knife. He’d be cleaning that blood off the blade about now if he’d not stalled so badly.

Shiro still matters to Keith and, judging by the careful yet heartbroken way Shiro is staring at him right now, Keith still matters to Shiro.

Keith’s not sure how he feels about that.

“You were an idiot,” Shiro says roughly, coming to kneel on the ground in front of him. “An idiot to think I’d think any less of you for becoming – ”

“As soon as you saw, you stuck a bar between my teeth.”

“You came into my house as an assassin.”

Keith narrows his eyes. “So you don’t think any less of me for being a vampire now, but an assassin is a different story?”

“I was in shock, alright?” Shiro’s face screws up. His throat moves as he swallows the emotion creeping into his voice. Passing a hand over his face, he takes a shuddering breath and lets it out slowly. “Do you have any idea… how hard I searched for you? You just vanished, Keith. A note would’ve been nice. Something other than strangers’ gossip to let me know that my brother hadn’t been killed out there?”

_Technically speaking, I kind of_ was _killed. Kind of._

Keith maintains eye contact. He stares Shiro down, even tries mentally persuading him to look away, but Shiro doesn’t break eye contact either.

At some stage while he was out, someone propped his head up on a cushion. Keith shifts a little so that he can look at Shiro better without straining his neck so much.

“How was I supposed to know you wouldn’t kill me?” Keith says tightly. “Remember how you used to keep your sword near the door, just in case a vampire came barging in one night?”

Shiro’s nostrils flare. “I would’ve recognised it was you.”

“Then you would’ve gone into shock, am I right? You’d have used it on me.”

“No. I wouldn’t have.”

“You don’t know. You don’t know what you would’ve done and I know you couldn’t live with that, Shiro.” Keith’s throat hurts with tears he can’t cry. “I couldn’t do that to you. I figured running away was the better option.”

He can hear Matt moving around quietly in another room on this floor, presumably the kitchen. Keith can tell he’s listening and he wishes he weren’t, but it’s too late to ask him to give them space. The conversation is here now.

“And,” Keith chokes out, “you don’t know what _I_ might’ve done.”

They’ve been talking long enough for Shiro to get many, many glimpses of Keith’s fangs. It’s distracting, he knows, but somehow the emotion in Shiro’s eyes is unwavering. He looks like he wants to argue the same thing Keith did, that there’s no way Keith could’ve known either what he might’ve done.

But Keith’s the vampire here, not Shiro – he _knows_.

Matt comes over with two steaming cups of black coffee. It’s a rare aroma out here in the desert since the beans have to be sourced all the way from the Balmeran plantations, but it’s not too surprising that to think that Shiro would have some stashed away. He is the Coalition leader, and coalition means allies in all sorts of places.

_Something the Blade of Marmora desperately needs,_ Keith thinks, then dams that thought.

Over half of the current Blades are vampires. Shiro might be willing to give an alliance with the Blades a shot, but Keith doubts the same could be said about the majority of the Coalition. Vampires are the reason they’re stuck in this war, and the reason why so many families and individuals have been forced to suffer.

But Zarkon won’t stop until he gains control of everyone. Until his Empire expands to the point that there’s no one left to resist or fight back against him, this war will go on and people will continue to be turned and killed. The Coalition has to realise at some point that they need to be willing to accept any aid they can get – even if that help comes from a group of vampire-inclusive rebels – if they want to ever have hope of the tug of war being in their favour.

That’s why Keith had been sent to kill the Coalition leader – to give the Coalition a chance to regain their footing in the fight against the Empire. The idea had been that the Coalition was stuck in the mud due to their leadership coming from a vampire, but now that is proven to be not the case, Keith wonders if the real problem is simply that the Coalition doesn’t have enough numbers to be able to make any real ground.

If that’s the case, then the resistance would really benefit from an alliance between the Coalition and the Blades. If Keith can talk to Shiro about it, maybe go back to base and talk to Kolivan about it first… maybe they’ll be able to get somewhere.

All these thoughts take only a matter of seconds to pass. The hope that sparks in Keith’s mind is quickly shut down and replaced by something else, however, when Matt sits down beside Shiro and asks his first question.

“Keith…” Matt says, handing one of the cups of coffee to Shiro. “Who turned you?”

The sickening churning in Keith’s stomach returns. He closes his eyes a moment and takes a deep breath.“I-I don’t remember.”

“…neither did Pidge, apparently.”

“Pidge?” Keith blinks. “Wait, what? You mean your sister, you mean she….?”

Matt nods. “A couple of weeks ago.” There’s a deliberate pause in which Matt takes a sip of coffee. “I take it you didn’t know, then.”

“Uh, how was I supposed to?”

Shiro frowns a little at Keith’s sarcastic tone. With a grimace, Keith fights back the torrent of emotion about to sweep over him. He shifts uncomfortably.

“Getting turned,” Keith grits out, “isn’t something that’s talked about. I-it’s a sensitive topic and most of us – most of the people who’ve been turned by the Empire that I know – don’t even remember it happening, only what it felt like. It’s….”

His voice is shaking. He’s shaking, and after he trails off Keith can’t find the heart the finish the sentence. 

_It’s horrible waking up changed._ The memory comes unwillingly, like it always does.

A flashback of fingers wrapped around his upper arms, bruising.

Of being pinned against the wall of the cave he’d been exploring, the vampire holding him there too strong to escape from.

The jolt of terror that had gripped him when teeth sank into the side of his neck, made him tense up, freeze up, his blood turning to fire and his heart failing and blacking out before the vampire had let him go.

Warmth, all around him. Keith startles. This was never part of the memory.

The tightness is gone from his wrists and ankles. He’s not sure when that happened. He blinks, and instead of the images his mind replays from that horrible experience of two years ago, he’s seeing the light of the Shiro’s house…

…and Shiro’s neck, a hands’ width from his nose.

Keith slams his hands into Shiro’s shoulders. _Too close, too close._ The hug falls apart and Keith’s scrambling backwards in a hurry, fingers catching in the rope that had bound him mere minutes ago. His shoulders are aching and his legs shaking with a bad kind of adrenaline.

“Don’t d-do that,” he whispers hoarsely, eyes stretched wide in horror. His back hits the cupboard and Keith finds he can’t go any further.

This is why he never came. This is why he ran. He’s not thirsty right now, but given a night or two he will be. He won’t be able to control himself as much then.

Fight or flight. Keith choses flight, just like he’s always done. Shiro’s calling his name and Matt’s reaching for the baseball bat leaning up against the table. Keith just runs. His ankles hurt from being tied together for so long, but he sprints all the same.

The stairs are his closest exit. He takes them two at a time. His knife’s not on the pillow. It’s not on the ground by the pot where he last saw it, either. Grimacing, Keith puts it to the back of his mind; there’s no time to look for it. He has to go.

Matt’s at the top of the stairs by the time Keith has the window open. The baseball bat’s in one of his hands. Keith’s mouth pulls down in a frown and he furrows his brow.

_I’m not going to fight you,_ he thinks, and then turns his face to the night outside and jumps.

He lands heavily. Keith picks himself up and takes off running through the alleyways. The rushing air makes the burn on his cheek sting. Shiro calls out his name from the window. Keith ignores it.

If Shiro had left him tied up when he’d hugged him, Keith wouldn’t be running right now. He wouldn’t have had the choice. But if… if he hadn’t…that hug….

_That was far too close._

_Keith’s never bitten a human before. He doesn’t want there to ever be a first._

He keeps to the shadows, climbing onto rooftops only once he reaches the outskirts of the building complex. Keith doesn’t want Shiro following him and he’d rather not risk people seeing him when his face is so exposed. Belatedly, he remembers the bandana around his neck and reaches up to pull it over his face. His fingers find only the collar of his clothes.

Keith bites back a frustrated exclamation. Shiro must’ve taken it off while he was asleep. Sure, it might’ve helped him breathe easier while he was out, but still. There’s a reason why Keith had been wearing that.

It doesn’t really matter anymore though, he supposes. Shiro knows his identity; he’s already been compromised. He compromised the mission, too, not to mention left his knife back at Shiro’s. So maybe running isn’t the best choice, but Keith’s too full of adrenaline – however slow moving through his vampire body it is – to change his mind.

_Why do you have to be so stupid, Shiro?_

_‘You were an idiot to think I’d think any less of you for becoming a vampire.’_

Keith misjudges a leap and crashes down into a hard roll, wrist twisting.

_‘Do you have any idea how hard I searched for you?’_

_Shiro, I’m sorry, but you honestly don’t have any idea… it doesn’t matter if I’m your brother or not. I’m a vampire. You weren’t there when I made my first kill. You weren’t there with me after I was turned. You didn’t see…_

A madness had come over him. Before the attack, Keith had kept hydrated while exploring the caves and their drawings. The second he woke up after the attack, however, he was parched, feeling almost ravaged. He’d left the torch in the cave where he’d dropped it, dumped his backpack and –

_No! Stop thinking!_

The coyote had seen him coming but it hadn’t been prepared for how savage an overwhelmed, newly turned vampire could be.

_STOP!_

It hadn’t been a clean kill. Keith hadn’t had any clue or self-control. The blood had tasted awful and had left him feeling nauseous, but it had stopped his insides from hurting so much and the pain eventually ebbed. He’d been able to breathe easier then, think clearer, and that’s when the realisation of what had just happened – who he’d just become – had hit him.

_Stop THINKING!_

Keith collapses in the dirt, breathing hard. His eyes are wide, unseeing. Clouds shift, but the moon has yet to rise. There’s no heartbeat hammering in his chest, in his ears. Just panic.

Just like before – the night he was turned ‘before’ – when he’d attracted the attention of a Blade returning to base post-mission, only this time there’s no one to help him calm down. Keith’s on his own here, on his knees halfway between Shiro and the foothills of the mountains where the Blade of Marmora base is located. In total, it’s an hour and a half’s run back to base. If he had to choose which way he wanted to go, he’d go back to Shiro in an instant… but that was before he was a vampire. Before he was a risk.

After a few minutes of doing nothing but breathing, Keith stands and keeps moving forward.

Deciding he has all night, Keith walks the rest of the way to the base. He manages to clear his head of the panic before he gets to the foothills, but he still hasn’t had time to process the fact that Shiro knows and that _Shiro_ is the Coalition leader and Keith didn’t kill him like he was supposed to…

Pushing himself up the last of the stone steps, Keith grimaces. Now he’s just got to figure out how to break the news to Kolivan.


End file.
